Where did Jesus Go?The Black Christ of Esquipulas

A Paper Presented byDouglass Sullivan-GonzálezThe Department of History

The University of MississippiLASA, ChicagoSeptember 1998

José Milla, the renowned nineteenth-century Guatemalan novelist, dabbled with abit of theology through his fallen character, el señor don Juan de Palomeque y Vargas, inhis 1867 novel, Los Nazarenos. Palomeque bargained with the “Lord of Esquipulas”, thesixteenth-century image of the Crucified Christ in order to regain his sight now lost to oldage and a progressive disease. Milla described how Palomeque journeyed to Esquipulasand, in penitent form, crawled on his knees and placed a gold chain on the feet of thesacred image and begged for the clarity of vision he once enjoyed. Immediately, themalcontent Palomeque experienced a miracle and regained his precious sight. However,Palomeque abused his experience of grace by thanking his gold chain in a cynical tonefor his recovered sight and not the power represented by the shrine. Instantly, darknesscovered the eyes of the depraved protagonist.1

José Milla presents a concise picture of the Guatemalan theological landscape inmid-nineteenth century through Palomeque’s blessing and curse. Milla appealed to thepower of the image of the Crucified Christ of Esquipulas to pass judgment on hisaristocratic Palomeque. Milla drew on an unmeasured reservoir of devotion to the“Crucified Lord of Esquipulas” in his portrayal of the providential judgment of God onthe ordinary actions of his fellow Guatemalans. The fool Palomeque had violated thesacred pact he had made with his precious gift to the image of Jesus of Nazareth. Infamiliar terms to his nineteenth century readers, Palomeque had broken his covenant withthe Almighty and deserved his blinded state.2

Palomeque’s travail encapsulates how clerics and laity constructed meaning duringthe years of conservative dominance in Guatemala. Milla’s prose emerged during the fewyears remaining of a political order that had brought a certain stability to the anarchicyears first experienced after Independence from Spain. Rafael Carrera, the mestizocaudillo from the eastern Guatemalan town of Mataquescuintla, rose on the power ofmass discontent with a classic liberal regime that had arbitrarily given land away toforeign colonizers, had harassed leaders and common priests of the Catholic church, andhad imposed quarantines during the fearful cholera epidemic in 1837. The secularizingpower of the State in Guatemala City had provoked the wrath of Guatemala’s easterninhabitants, and Carrera cultivated that political fury to gain power by military force in1839.

For the next thirty two years, Carrera and allies would forge a certain politicalstability. From the early 1850s until the death of the caudillo in 1865, the political chaosof Guatemala subsided and the economy rebounded during the latter years of the

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cochineal boom and the first years of coffee’s introduction. The Catholic church regaineda certain prominence during the conservative years as clerics and faithful, especiallySpanish-speaking mestizos (ladinos) from eastern Guatemala followed prominent ruralclerics to support the Carrera regime from internal and external threats. Strong evidencesuggests that a theological discourse emanated from churches in the capital andcountryside that affirmed that God had chosen Guatemala as His own. Like Israel, if thepeople of Guatemala obeyed and protected the Church, then God would continue to grantthem peace and prosperity. If they disobeyed, God would certainly punish. Even JoséMilla proclaimed that Guatemala’s journey mirrored Israel’s flight from captivity inEgypt in a 1846 speech. Catholic discourse during the conservative years coalesced inand through these events to create a sense of nation, especially among the inhabitants ofthe capital and ladinos in eastern Guatemala.3

Historians still have not ascertained to what degree devotion to the CrucifiedChrist of Esquipulas, or in twentieth-century vernacular, the “Black Christ”, playedduring this vivacious struggle over politics, national identity, and religiosity during theCarrera years. Except for Milla’s literary reference, the Crucified Christ of Esquipulasnever assumed a prominent role in sermons during the conservative era. The religiousidentity constructed by Catholic clerics in Guatemala created a sense of uniqueness basedon events that favored “Guatemala”, not on a particular shrine held in honor by most. Inthe eyes of these religious interpreters, Independence came without bloodshed; factiouscivil wars declined as Guatemalans revered their religion; Guatemalan troops expelled theProtestant invasion of William Walker in concert with other troops; and Carrera’s forcesliberated the Salvadorans and their church from their liberal oppressors in 1863. Thus,Guatemala’s “story” paralleled Israel’s story: their journey from captivity to liberationdepended upon Guatemala’s loyalty to the divine agreement.

In contrast to Guatemala, religious and political leaders in Mexico assigned theVirgin of Guadalupe a central role in the making of a national identity. With roots in themid-seventeenth century, urban clerics and Creoles looked to the brown-skinnedrepresentation of the Mother of Jesus as a crucial story in the making of the nation.According to some witnesses, Hidalgo appealed to the Virgin of Guadalupe to protect hisrebels and justify his cause. The retelling of Mexican history included the holy shawl asan integral part of the Independence movement and proved unique to Mexican religiousidentity.4

A lacuna of evidence haunts the historian of the nineteenth century in Guatemalain the search for the Jesus of Esquipulas. Save for Milla’s literary insight, few referenceshighlight devotion to the Christ of Esquipulas during the first seven decades of thenineteenth century. Writing in 1829, the cleric Miguel Muñoz, interim cleric of theEsquipulas parish, lamented that the laudable custom of pilgrimages and processions tothe Crucified Christ of Esquipulas “had disappeared among whites while only the Indiansremained faithful to tradition.” Muñoz also added that faithful attended to the homageand pilgrimage of the shrine between January 6 and 15th of each year.5 Around 1840,during first years of Carrera’s dominance, a second annual pilgrimage commenced during

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Holy Week. Citing no evidence, the priest of Esquipulas, Juan Paz Solórzano, curiouslyconcluded in 1914 that the second fiesta grew out of economic necessity given thegrowing importance of Esquipulas’ commercial centrality to the Republics of El Salvadorand Honduras.6 His economically-determined conclusion conflicts with one drawn from amore important struggle advocated by Carrera. As part of his popular insurrectionaryplatform, Carrera had promised to give back to the people their religion and protect theircustoms. The caudillo’s demands conflicted with the Guatemalan Vicar General’s writtenwishes to Rome to reduce the number of fiestas in Guatemala, a wish Rome granted andprovoked the ire of the popular military leader.7 One can easily surmise that “the people”took advantage of Carrera’s political victory and expanded their devotion from thecelebration of Epiphany to the week of Easter.

Sermons emanating predominantly from the capital, correspondence from easternGuatemala during the Carrera years, and pastoral visits by the Archbishop and hisentourage hardly mention the popularity or problems with the sacred image ofEsquipulas.8 Isolated anecdotes give witness to the regional power of the holy shrine inthis difficult period. Jesús María Gutiérrez served the parish of Esquipulas for almosttwenty-five years and favorably impressed the traveling U.S. diplomat, John LloydStephens in 1839. The North American admired how Gutiérrez devoted himself to thepeople under his charge. Stephens also described the attendees of the famed Esquipulaschurch.

The church for everyday use was directly opposite the convent, spaciousand gloomy, and the floor was paved with large square bricks or tiles. Rows ofIndian women were kneeling around the altar, cleanly dressed, with whitemantillas over their heads, but without shoes or stockings. A few men stood upbehind or leaned against the walls.

We returned to breakfast, and afterward set out to visit the only object ofinterest, the great church of the pilgrimage, the Holy Place of Central America.Every year, on the fifteenth of Jerusalem, pilgrims visit it, even from Peru andMexico; the latter being a journey not exceeded in hardship by the pilgrimage toMecca. As in the East, “it is not forbidden to trade during the pilgrimage;” andwhen there are no wars to make the roads unsafe, eighty thousand people haveassembled among the mountains to barter and pay homage to “Our Lord ofEsquipulas.”9

Stephens noted that “in front of the altar, in a rich shrine, is an image of the Saviour onthe cross, ‘our Lord of Esquipulas,’ to whom the church is consecrated, famed for itspower of working miracles.” Usually given to vivacious portraits of landscapes andpeople, Stephens modestly bypassed the ornately darkened and passionate figure of theChrist. Instead, Stephens noted that “every year thousands of devotees ascend the steps ofhis temple on their knees, or laden with a heavy cross, who are not permitted to touch thesacred image, but go away contented in obtaining a piece of riband stamped with thewords, ‘Dulce nombre de Jesus.’”10

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According to Ralph Lee Woodward, Rafael Carrera made at least two prominentvisits to the holy shrine at Esquipulas. In December 1845, Carrera visited the easternregion to quell disturbances and pay a visit to the shrine; and in 1853, Carreraaccompanied Archbishop Francisco García Peláez to Esquipulas. Finally, Woodwardnoted, officials held the January fiesta celebrating Epiphany in 1858 in Esquipulas afterthe great 1857 cholera epidemic. People from Honduras and El Salvador joined in as thecommercially important city attracted many for the religious celebration.11

Thousands made holy pilgrimage to “our Lord of Esquipulas”, as Stephens andothers asserted, yet, the shrine assumed marginal prominence within the writing andcorrespondence of Guatemalan clerics in the capital city and in the countryside during theCarrera period. A religious identity of the nation did not necessarily include the shrine atEsquipulas. Some might be quick to argue that the elite dimension of the archives, thosewho write make the history, explains the dearth of reference. Geographical features andhistoric considerations explain the near absence of the “Lord of Esquipulas” in thegrowing narrative of Guatemalan Catholics in the nineteenth century. Devotion to theshrine transcended in limited fashion the local boundaries of Esquipulas.

Located in the far eastern corner of Guatemala, the town of Esquipulas serves as aprincipal border town to both Honduras and El Salvador. Whereas the Virgin ofGuadalupe resided within the colonial and national circumference of Mexico City, thepatron saint of Esquipulas transcended the immediate nineteenth-century borders of theCentral American nations, and did not lend itself to the creation of a religiously-inspirednational or Central American identity. Aware of its peripheral location, and perhapssensitive to the issue at hand, parish priests recorded the legend that Providenceintervened to block the attempt to move the sacred image of Esquipulas to the capital cityof Guatemala. A torrential downpour prevented the sacred image of the Crucified Christfrom leaving, and the faithful interpreted the deluge as Divine will protesting such amove.12

Church cordilleras, or chain letters, sent by the capital hierarchy evidence thegeographical impediments which enhanced the distance between Esquipulas andGuatemala City. Significant mountains and rivers surrounded the famed city, andcombined with human slothfulness and unrest, correspondence directed to the isolatedregion of Esquipulas arrived much later.13 Cordilleras directed to the parish of Esquipulasfrom the ecclesiastic headquarters in Guatemala City regularly required the same timeperiod for the same circular directed to the western highlands. A circular concerning thereinstitution of tithes in August 1841 arrived in Esquipulas two days later than the samecircular sent to Huehuetenango. A similar chain letter sent in 1845 to the vicariate ofQuezaltenango made the rounds in one month while the same letter sent to the vicariateof Chiquimula required two months to make the rounds to various clergy.14

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Crucified Christ of Esquipulasbegan to feature prominently in the religious identity of the Guatemalan Catholic church.With the natural death of Carrera in 1865 and the collapse of the conservative regime tothe Winchesters and Remingtons of its liberal opponents, the Catholic church suffered a

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new round of public pressure and harassment. The growth captured during the Carrerayears quickly diminished as the Barrios regime systematically enforced classic LatinAmerican liberal measures against the religious institution and its representatives.General Barrios pursued a secularizing policy against the Church, exiled the Archbishopand closed down most of the regular orders. Church officials adjusted to even harsherreality than experienced during the years of the Central American federation.15

During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, parish priests began torecord an increasing number of miracles attributed to the shrine at Esquipulas. Withpublications in 1904 and 1914, the parish priest Juan Paz Solórzano charted the historyand attraction of the “Crucified Lord of Esquipulas.” According to his written records,soon after its sculpting, witnesses gave credit to the holy shrine for ten miracles in the1600s and seven in the 1700s. Records from 1800 through end of the Conservative era,the 1870s, indicate only four miracles. Beginning with the 1880s, a marked change tookplace. From 1880 through 1911, parish priests recorded twenty-eight different miraclesattributed to the Crucified Christ of Esquipulas.

Given the increased notoriety of the shrine, Paz Solórzano and other parish priestspetitioned the Archbishop to consecrate and declare that the Holy Christ of Esquipulaswould be the Principal Patron of the Ecclesiastical Province of Guatemala (PatrónPrincipal de la Provincia Eclesiástica de Guatemala). In 1916, Archbishop Riveiroaccompanied Juan Paz Solórzano and a host of other priests, anointed the shrine andconsecrated it.16

Within four decades of that consecration, Esquipulas would contribute one of itssons to lead the Guatemalan Catholic Church, Monseñor Mariano Rossell y Arellano.The shrine featured prominently in Archbishop Rossell’s challenge to the democraticallyelected government of Jacobo Arbenz and his political goals. Archbishop Rossell initiateda national campaign 1953 to confront “atheistic communism”, and carried the CrucifiedLord of Esquipulas from town to town to pursue his theological and political message. Inaddition to his very prominent role, Rossell also energized the decaying Catholicinstitution, and the number of clerics and lay leaders more than tripled withinGuatemala.17

Thus the shrine of Esquipulas, given pressure from the secularizing Stateapparatus, increased devotion and praise for the miracles performed, and the intentionalhierarchical support at the local and national level, assumed a greater part of theGuatemala religious identity. Additionally, hostile Protestant presence now significant invoice and number in some way enhanced the prestige and identity of Guatemala’sCatholicism. Beginning in 1889 and throughout the twentieth century, any historicanalysis of the shrine from the apologetic perspective of the Catholic officials necessarilyincluded a conceptual and theological defense of Catholic shrines and a subsequenttheological challenges to Protestant views.18 In sum, by the twentieth century, the shrineof Esquipulas equaled the heart and soul of Guatemalan Catholicism, a reality born ofpolitical and theological pressure.

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Any discussion of the Esquipulas shrine necessarily entails an inquiry into the“popular religiosity” of the “people.” The historiography of this conceptual tool -- stillincomplete -- suggests at least three different approaches to the study of religion.19

Historians or other social scientists who accepted the philosophical assumptions ofmodernization understood that society divided between the civilized and uncivilized,between the folk and the elite. Thus an implicit secularizing notion of religion andreligiosity underscored any analysis. Euclides da Cunha’s masterful rendition of TheRebellion in the Backlands (1904) offers a clear perspective of this approach. The“atavistic” Conselheiro and his religious “fanaticism” fueled the rebellion in the Brazilianbacklands and forced the collision of two cultures. The modernist perspective yielded toa significant philosophical shift that valorized “the people” vis a vis the dominant eliteand its representative institutions.

Given the broad analytical movement beyond the modernist perspective, historiansand other scientists shifted their analytical eye to capture how ordinary people contestedState.20 Eric Wolf’s Sons of the Shaking Earth (1959) and Richard Adams’ Crucifixion byPower (1970) reflect such a shift among anthropologists. Part of the post-modernistimpulse manifested a related inquiry within those studying “religion.” Not only didanalysts study the structure of power in non-elite communities, they followed CliffordGeertz and Victor Turner to see how people created meaning through ritual andcelebration. Interestingly, this broad-base movement transcended both the secular andreligious University given the implicit assumption to not reduce “religion” or “religiosity”to some material or psychological lament. William B. Taylor and Enrique Dussel reflectthis change within the discipline of Latin America history. Taylor’s work on eighteenth-century clerics in Mexico reflects a philosophical commitment to look at “local religion”while Dussel noted how the peoples who identify with the faith of Christianity of LatinAmerica exhibit a “chiaroscuro”, an blend of two worlds impossible to distinguish.21

Given the difficulty to distinguish the European from the Indian worlds threecenturies after contact, analysts now invoke the term “popular religiosity” or “popularreligion” to describe how the people or masses produce culture. Ricardo Bendaña calledthe Christ of Esquipulas the “center of Central American popular religiosity.” In this case,Bendaña assumed a classic notion of “popular religiosity,” a broad-based culture of thosewho practice the faith that impinges upon the elite prescribers of the faith. Given certainmoments of conflict, the faith of the people might even democratize that somewhat aloofand dominant culture.22

Sensitive to the notion of power and self-representation does however occult thechange taking place within the people and between dominant and marginal groups. Apopular representation becomes popular through a process, and the dynamic between the“elite” and the “masses” becomes very fluid. The Crucified Lord of Esquipulas denotesone such case: conceived by the clerics and paid for by the local Indians in 1595;enhanced by Archbishop Pedro Pardo’s personal involvement when cured at the shrinethe early 1700s; maintained by the multicultural people of Esquipulas through the 1800s;

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and then vaunted to national prominence again in the twentieth century by a combinationof various social groups.23

Both the clerics and the people maintained the vivaciousness of the shrine. It mayeven be argued that people forced the rural priests to make it even more accessible to thepeople through the multiplication of miracle stories in the late nineteenth century and thepriests preserved this history for future pilgrims. Both pilgrims and priests activelymolded the statue by guarding it, by maintaining it, even changing it!. Father Juan PazSolórzano actually removed a hair piece from the head of the statue bequeathed by someanonymous pilgrim!24

Like the three European apparitions of the Virgin Mary -- Lourdes (1858) andMarpingen (1876) and Fátima (1917) -- the people pressured clerics to give the placemore prominence. Unlike all three, Church officials effectively controlled and reproducedthe history of the statue of Esquipulas. No popular tradition effectively challenged thehistory of the shrine’s construction by a Portuguese immigrant from 1594 to 1595. UnlikeMarpingen that withers without official sanction, and like Lourdes and Fátima, the holyshrines receive Papal blessing through pressure from people and the local clergy.25

Thus the fluidity between official and unofficial, between priest and parishionermake the Christ of Esquipulas significant. Evidence indicates a change in the nature ofsupport among the people toward the shrine from its inception in the late sixteenthcentury and to its renewed religious charisma of the early twentieth century. No greaterevidence exists that the changing name of the shrine itself! Sixteenth century documentsindicate the name of the shrine to be the “Santissimo Crusifixo que está en la Yglesia ySantuario de este dho. Pueblo.” In the seventeenth century, the renowned Archbishop ofGuatemala, Francisco Joseph de Figueredo y Victoria made plans to move the shrine to anew temple in 1758. Figueredo venerated the statue as “Christo Nro. Señor que se veneraen la Yglesia de el Pueblo de Santiago Esquipulas”. Before it was moved, the Archbishopdied and the Bishop of Comayagua assumed control and moved the “Ssma. Ymmagen deChristo Crucificado que se venera en este Pueblo” on January 6, 1759. The parish priestof Esquipulas, Miguel Muñoz, put to rest in 1830 any apparition legends behind theconstruction of the “Jesús Crucificado de Esquipulas.” By 1904, the parish priest, JuanPaz Solórzano meticulously transcribed miracles and the history associated with the“Señor Crucificado de Esquipulas.” A group of priests who had gathered to aid FatherSolórzano with the January festivities formally requested that the Archbishop seek Papalapproval for the consecration of the shrine. Given the increased devotion to the shrine andthe current needs that “afflict Central America,” the priests requested the consecration of“Señor de Esquipulas Patrono Principal de estas Provincias Eclesiásticas de Centro-América.” Evidently, the Archbishop fulfilled the majority of their wishes, consecratingthe venerated image of the “Señor Crucificado del Santuario de Esquipulas en laArquidiócesis de Guatemala.”26

Solórzano’s historic rendition of the name of the holy shrine became official in thePapal consecration in 1916. In his analysis of the origin of its dark color, Solórzanosubtitled his analysis “Encarnación” to explain the darkened color of the Crucified Christ.

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In a sensitive and ingenious explanation, Solórzano gave reason to the Portuguesesculptor’s thinking: the pathos of the Passion made Jesus dark with agony, and thewounds inflicted upon him reduced him to this empathetic color. Citing other Europeanimages, Solórzano underscored and justified the “obscured” color of the shrine despitethe fact that “some ironically concluded that Jesus [was] black (negro).”27 Solórzanowrote:

Es necesario declarar todas esas circunstancias para poner de manifiesto queese color, no proviene, ni de la antigüedad, ni del bálsamo, ni del incienso que sequema (solo durante la misa), ni del humo que despiden las velas (como algunossin reflexionar afirman), sino que, como extensamente expliqué, fué encarnaciónó colorido dado exprofeso, que ningun pintor podría hoy imitar, destruyéndosecon estas razones, aquel error craso que algunos irónicamente propalan, diciendoque el Señor es negro, pues no es tal, sino que su color obscuro imita la sangremuerta como en realidad debió aparecer.”28

Protestant diatribes against Catholics focused on the images. Denouncing theshrines as “idols”, Protestants attacked the shrine at Esquipulas and focused on its color.One foreign Protestant called the shrine the “black and repulsive image of Nimrod”, thefalse prophet of the Babylonians. Another foreign Protestant, John Thomas Butler couldnot fathom why the crucified Jesus was black “when everyone knew he was a Jew.”“What a difference,” Butler concluded, “there is between Jesus and a black idol.”29

Protestants touched and maybe even cultivated priestly concern over the“blackness” of the Esquipulas shrine. The worry associated with the shrine’s “blackness”grew more evident by mid-twentieth century. In the height of Rossell’s emergence andthe transcendence of the shrine in Guatemalan politics in the late 1940s, the Catholicchurch republished Solórzano’s historic analysis with a few significant additions.Rossell’s edited version of Solórzano’s subtitle read not “Encarnación”, but “La ImagenNo Es de Color Negro.” Clearly Rossell’s camp took offense of the growing popularity ofthe name, “the Black Christ of Esquipulas.” In the significant change, Rossell’s editorsmarked the transition of the “Señor Crucificado de Esquipulas” to the “Cristo Negro deEsquipulas.”30

The racial implications could not be clearer. The official hierarchy took offense atthe use of the term “negro” in a very provocative political climate, and anyone at leastfamiliar with Guatemala knows personally and professional the challenges facing thismulti-ethnic society. Though Rossell’s editors did their best to stop the ever-changingname to the Black Christ, by 1994, Catholic officials appeared to accept begrudgingly thenew name. The Reverend Padre Luis Diez de Arriba wrote in commemoration of theshrine’s 400 years a new and popular account of the Crucified Christ of Esquipulas. Heentitled his work, Esquipulas - 400 años. “Fe Blanca en Un Cristo Negro.” Intending tocreate a heuristic device to explain Esquipulas, Diez reflected the ever tenderethnocentricity facing Guatemalans. A “white faith” meant to Diez that the person offaith encountering the very real and human appearance of the Black Christ would leavewith a “humble heart and clean mind.” 31

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The history and historiography concerning the Black Christ of Esquipulas couldnot present a clearer picture of change and continuity. Given the historic meetings of twocultures in the sixteenth century -- themselves a product of great change and continuity --peoples constructed meaning in a particular historic moment. Creole clerics, a Portuguesesculpture and a multicultural village in eastern Guatemala produced a shrine whosesacredness ebbed and flowed with the making of history. Measuring that ebb and flowbecomes the task of the historian and the source of much inspiration.

1 Salome Jil (José Milla), Los nazarenos, 4a. edición (Guatemala: Tipografía Nacional,1935), 1-36.2 In Doug Sullivan-González, Piety, Power, and Politics: Religion and Nation Formationin Guatemala, 1821-1871 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998), 60-80.3 See Piety, Power, and Politics, 71. Also see Flavio Rojas Lima, editor, José Milla. Unhistoriador centroamericano, 1822-1882 (Guatemala: Editorial José de Pineda Ibarra,1982), 37-40.4 See David A. Brading, The Origins of Mexican Nationalism (Cambridge: University ofCambridge, 1985), 90; and William B. Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred. Priests andParishioners in Eighteenth-Century Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996),278-287.5 Miguel Muñoz, “Noticia de la imágenm sacratísima y admirable de Jesús Crucificado deEsquipulas” in Doctrina cristiana sobre el culto de las imágenes, y noticia verdadera de laimágen milagrosa que se venera en el santuario del pueblo de Esquipulas con una novenaal fin dedicada al dulcísimo nombre de Jesús, año de 1830 (Guatemala: 1889),18 and 23.6 Juan Paz Solórzano, Historia del Santo Cristo de Esquipulas, 2a edicion [edited andamplified by special charge of Archbishop of Guatemala, Monseñor Mariano RossellArellano] (Guatemala: <1914> 1949), 85.7 Antonio Larrazábal, Edicto, con el breve pontíficio relativo á la disminución del númerode dias festivos (Guatemala: Imprenta del Exército, 1840); and Rafael Carrera, RafaelCarrera teniente general y general en gefe del exército del estado de Guatemala, a susconciudadanos, December 12, 1840.8 Few records of the famed Christ of Esquipulas surfaced in Archdiocesis Archives inGuatemala. Historian carry certain questions in the reading of any document that illumineand block pertinent analysis. I did, however, seek to understand the support base of theCatholic church in the countryside, especially those churches in eastern Guatemala. Theparish of Esquipulas featured prominently in that regional focus. The parish priest, JoséMaría Gutiérrez, served the Esquipulas parish from 1835 through 1860, the longest tenureof any cleric in Guatemala during this period.9 John L. Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, vol. 1(New York: Dover Publications <1841> 1969), 168-169. Henry Dunn, in his visit toGuatemala in 1827, twelve years before Stephens’ visit, noted 80,000 have been knownto visit the shrine but “at the present day the number is greatly decreased, and not more

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than ten to twenty thousand congregate.” Curiously, both Dunn and Stephens cited“80,000” visitors without referencing a source. Dunn’s early visit and current observationoutweighs Stephens’ unmeasured generalization. See Henry Dunn, Guatimala, or theRepublic of Central America, in 1827-8; being sketches and memorandums made duringa twelve-month’s residence (Michigan: Ethridge Books <1829> 1981), 124.10 Stephens, Incidents of Travel, 170.11 Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr., Rafael Carrera and the Emergence of the Republic ofGuatemala, 1821-1871 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1993), 182, 273, and 298.12 R. P. Luis Diez de Arriba, Esquipulas - 400 Años. “Fe blanca en un Cristo Negro(Guatemala: n.p., 1995), 104. The author provided no date to the legend.13 R. Lee Woodward noted that record rainfall in 1847 caused considerable damage in theDepartment of Chiqumula along the banks of the Río Motagua and at Esquipulas. SeeWoodward, Rafael Carrera and the Emergence of the Republic of Guatemala, 191.14 See the Cordillera to Clergy, concerning the Tithe, August 16, 1841, Archivo HistóricoArquidiocesano “Francisco de Paula García Peláez” de Guatemala (AHAG), Box T3 60,no. 141, and the Cordillera directed to clergy on the Vatican’s Encyclical againstProtestants, February 3, 1845, AHAG.15 H. J. Miller, La iglesia católica y el estado en Guatemala, 1871-1885 (Guatemala:Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, 1976), 117-183.16 Juan Paz Solórzano, Segunda parte de la historia del Señor Crucificado del Santuariode Esquipulas (Guatemala: Tip. Arenales Hijos, 1916), 8-11. See also Agustin EstradaMonroy, Datos para la historia de la iglesia de Guatemala, Tomo III (Guatemala:Tipografía Nacional, 1979), 364.17 R. Bendaña, “Guatemala,” América Central: Tomo VI in Enrique Dussel’s HistoriaGeneral de la iglesia en América Latina (Salamanca: Ediciones Sígueme, 1985), 365-372.See also José Luis Chea, Guatemala: la cruz fragementada (San José, Costa Rica: DEI,1988), 71-87.18 See Muñoz, Doctrina cristiana sobre el culto de las imágines, 5-25; and Paz Solórzano,Historia del Señor Crucificado de Esquipulas (1914), 104-129.19 In my commitment to write a historiography of “popular religion” in Latin Americanhistory, I discovered some key sources that transcend discipline and region. CharlesLong’s article, “Popular Religion” and William A. Christian, Jr.’s article, “FolkReligion,” accomplish a masterful job of setting up the strengths and weaknesses of thistool. See Long in The Encyclopedia of Religion, s.v., “popular religion,” and Christian inThe Encyclopedia of Religion, s.v., “folk religion.” Two long-standing critiques of thenotion of “popular religion” surface in the writings of Peter Brown and Natalie Davis.Brown, in his The Cult of Saints (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), lays out adevastating critique of the notion of popular religion. Brown argues that the tool disguiseschange within history and reifies the popular among the people. Natalie Davis suggeststhe notion of “religious cultures” instead of popular religion. She wrote that the relationaldynamic among participants -- prescribers and practitioners -- forms a culture in itself.

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See Natalie Zemon Davis, “From ‘Popular Religion’ to Religious Cultures” in StevenOzment’s Reformation Europe: A Guide to Research (St. Louise: Center for ReformationResearch, ) 321-341.20 Euclides da Cunha, Rebellion in the Backlands, trans. by Samuel Putnam (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, <1902>1944).21 Eric R. Wolf, Sons of the Shaking Earth (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959);Richard Newbold Adams, Crucifixion by Power. Essays on Guatemalan National SocialStructure, 1944-1966 (Texas: University of Texas at Austin, 1970); William B. Taylor,Magistrates of the Sacred, 47-48. Taylor acknowledged his conceptual indebtedness toWilliam Christian’s view that the “practical impingement of the institutions of a centralreligion on the religious life of peasants” is as much a part of this history as the ways inwhich local practices may have departed from and challenged doctrine. See WilliamChristian, Local Religion in Sixteenth-Century Spain, (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1981), 8.22 Bendaña and many within the CEHILA fold follow the remarkable lead of EnriqueDussel who has reshaped the way historians and other analysts treat religion, religiosityand the institutional Catholic church in Latin America. For Dussel, popular religiositybegan within the Christian faith began the moment Constantine raised Christianity fromits pluralistic and marginalized position to one of recognition and protection by theCrown. Thus a Greek-Roman world began to absolutize historic models of the faith. SeeEnrique D. Dussel and Maria Mercedes Esandi, El catolicismo popular en Argentina(Buenos Aires: Editorial Bonum, 1970), 31-32.23 The Portuguese sculptor, Quirio Cataño, evidently carved and painted the image of thecrucified Jesus according to his own conviction. The only documents, copies of theoriginal contract, do not indicate any preferred design. See Paz Solórzano, Documentoshistóricos referentes á la sagrada imágen del Señor Crucificado de Esquipulas y de susantuario (Guatemala: Tipografía Sánchez y de Guise, 1904), 3. One cleric wrote that theIndians had planted a field of cotton to underwrite the cost of the image, and today theSanctuary resides in that field. See Muñoz, Doctrina cristiana sobre el culto de lasimágenes, 14. Given Esquipulas’ relative location to the great classic Maya sites ofCopan, some analysts have sought a historic connection to the broad-based devotion tothe Esquipulas shrine and the pre-conquest faiths. J. Thompson and Borhegy contendsuch historic continuity between the Esquipulas Christ and the pre-Conquest sites. SeeCarl Kendall, “The Politics of Pilgrimage: The Black Christ of Esquipulas” in Pilgrimagein Latin America, edited by N. Ross Crumrine and Alan Morinis (New York: GreenwoodPress, 1991), 139-412.24 Solórzano, Historia del Señor Crucificado de Esquipulas (1914), 18.25 William Thomas Walsh, Our Lady of Fátima (New York: Image Books, 1954), 44-53;David Blackbourn, Marpingen. Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Nineteenth-CenturyGermany (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), 103-110. The Virgin of Guadalupe,consecrated in 1895, brings to bear an additional Latin American perspective. The Virgin

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of Guadalupe received local support first from clerics and Indians, then increaseddevotion within Creole circles in the eighteenth century and among a large multi-ethnicfollowing in the nineteenth century and twentieth century. See William B. Taylor,Magistrates of the Sacred, 279-287.26 Paz Solórzano, Segunda parte de la historia del Señor Crucificado del Santuario deEsquipulas (1916), 8-11.27 Solórzano Paz, Historia del Señor Crucificado de Esquipulas (1914), 19.28 Ibid.29 Ibid., 105.30 Paz Solórzano, Historia del Santo Cristo de Esquipulas, (1949), 15.31 Luís Diez de Arriba, Esquipulas - 400 Años (Guatemala: n.p., 1994), 150. Who gaveimpetus to the popular name, “Cristo Negro?” Maybe anti-clerical forces mobilizing toundermine the shrine’s popularity among the people used the racial connotation ofblackness. Maybe the faithful preferred the simple name, Cristo negro, instead of the everevolving name of the shrine. Further research will have to shed light on this question.